


r/academia: how do you not die from P&T stress asking for a friend

by elanev91



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Academia, Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Professor!Remus, University Staff!Sirius, anxious as fuck!Remus, except they're working at the university not going there, we're back with Remus Loves Burritos pt 2 only three years later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28836102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elanev91/pseuds/elanev91
Summary: Remus is up for his three-year contract renewal and he's totally dealing with it.Not stressed at all.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 18
Kudos: 78





	r/academia: how do you not die from P&T stress asking for a friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [professor_riddikulus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/professor_riddikulus/gifts).



> Professor-riddikulus, this is for you — happy birthday my friend. You're my best friend in the world, I hope you love the continued shenanigans of these idiots. Sorry it took me literally three years to get my act together and write part two.
> 
> If you haven't read [Remus Discovers Burritos](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13410660) (written, uh… as I said, literal years ago sorry sorry sorry) that would be helpful background. Especially to explain Remus'... Narration style (lol). Enjoy x
> 
> Oh, also, the timeline is technically 2020 in this fic but WE DO NOT SEE THE EVENTS OF 2020 IN THIS FIC, MY LOVES, WE DO NOT SEE THEM

Remus Lupin knew for very embarrassing fact that there was a whole Reddit thread on the best way to sleep in your office and not get caught, but no amount of scrolling through r/academia had revealed to him the thread about what you do after your Chair walks in on you _heavily_ flirting with the department staff.

It wasn't — look, he knew it wasn't the worst thing, and Sirius (said department staff and also, come to that, Remus' officially human resources declared boyfriend) kept telling him as much in that sharp, gruff, New York, _everybody else can literally just fuck off, we weren't doing anything wrong and even if we were, fuck 'em_ kind of way all while flicking his hair over his shoulder in that way that, fucking hell, made Remus want to thread his fingers through it and _tug_ — but no matter how much he knew, in his brain, that it was fine, that didn't stop his heart from going a million miles a minute every time he bloody thought about McGonagall walking into the central office five minutes ago and finding Remus stood there, hand on Sirius' forearm, full flirt on display.

There was a reason he'd gotten into academia after all, and it wasn't because he'd thought it was a hotbed of sexual intrigue.

Though he'd been to more than enough academic conferences at this point to know that even that was a gross misinterpretation of academia. At least some corners of it. MLA, after all, wasn't completely _free_ of "wow, I can't believe they were full on groping each other at the Night Out like we _wouldn't notice_ ".

Remus had just never happened to be the one associated with any such drama. And he'd never even participated in the dramatic retellings of said drama because, you know what, yes, he was a grown adult, but his ears still definitely went red whenever people talked about anything even remotely untoward (as his mother would have said) and he was tired of people laughing and going, 'Lupin, are you embarrassed?'

Yes, Mike, yes he was, and you weren't helping by pointing it out.

He was currently hiding in his office, ears as red as fucking stop lights, cursing under his breath at Reddit for failing him, when there was a knock on his door frame — oh, fuck, he should have shut his fucking door, hidden away, curled up and died, this was no way to escape the scene of the crime, leaving your _door open_ — and he looked up.

It was not, in fact, McGonagall standing there, termination papers in hand. But Sirius.

And, of course, he was smiling that smile. Remus had spent a lot of time thinking about Sirius' smiles — he had several of them — and even with all that time well spent (very well spent when he was thinking about the particular smile that Sirius pressed against his neck when they were in his bed, not a stitch of clothing between them), he couldn't properly think of a way to describe this one.

It was almost graceful, Remus thought. A kind of loping smile, like Sirius' stride taken and plastered across his face. There was an ease to it, a simplicity, like _of course_ , and every time Remus saw it, he felt his shoulders creep down from his ears, like some of the tension that had made its home in his trapezius finally leached out.

'Am I fired?'

Sirius laughed and stepped inside Remus' office, dropping down in the small couch Remus had against the wall beside his desk (a tip from said sleeping in your office r/academia thread).

'No. We weren't even doing anything.' Remus didn't say anything and Sirius decided to add on another extra tidbit, possibly in hopes that Remus would stop going full nuclear meltdown. 'I think McGonagall would fire me before she fired you anyway. And you know how much she loves me.'

Remus snorted. 'I doubt that's true. You're, like, her right hand.'

Sirius leant back in his seat, his legs splaying open a little as he pushed himself down and rested his head on the back of the sofa. 'You're right, this place would fall apart without me. Guess it _would_ have to be you first.'

'Is that why you came in here?' Remus looked back down at his computer and moved his fingers uselessly over the keys like he was typing something Very Important. 'To remind me that you're an incredibly valuable member of society?'

Sirius picked his head up, a devilish grin on his face now. If Sirius' loping smile made Remus feel at ease, this smile keyed him up all over again, though in a very different (and, uh, much more interesting and work inappropriate) way. 'I don't think you need reminding of _that_.'

Remus felt his ears start to burn and his gaze slid over to the door again, like he expected McGonagall to be standing there listening to them. She, of course, wasn't standing there (she definitely had more interesting things to be doing than listening in on her faculty), and Remus flicked his gaze back to his computer, actually clicking over to his email this time.

'Why do you enjoy torturing me?' Remus muttered.

'It brings me joy,' Sirius said simply. He was grinning when Remus looked up at him, full mischief this time.

Remus loved and hated that smile in equal measure.

'But anyway,' Sirius said, pushing himself up in his seat so that he was sitting properly, 'I wanted to let you know that I heard back from the Dean's Office and they're definitely processing your Scholar Mentor paperwork in place of the Provost's Office. I can submit through them and then we should see the refund into the account in a week or so. They're a lot faster than the Provost.' He paused for a moment, and Remus just caught the shift in his expression before Sirius started talking. 'I was going to tell you earlier, of course, but then you started flirting with me and I forgot.'

Remus dropped his head down into his hands, his elbows landing hard on the edge of his laptop. 'I hate you.'

Sirius just laughed again, that loud, burst of sound that made it very clear just how pleased he was with himself. Remus wasn't looking, but he heard Sirius push himself to his feet and, a second later, Sirius had bent over and pressed a kiss to the top of Remus' head, a centimetre or so above the tips of his fingers.

'Sure you do.'

'I mean it,' Remus said. He still wasn't looking up. He was going to live here forever. He could teach with his hands up over his eyes, surely. Maybe on Skype with his camera off and a presentation running, his students wouldn't even be any the wiser.

Sirius laughed again, a soft chuckle under his breath that sounded like crushed velvet. 'Just don't come into the office for the next, like, fifteen. It's my flirt time with Minnie.'

Remus groaned louder and, this time, dropped his whole head down onto his desk.

'It's not like you have no history of flirting with me in the office before,' Sirius said. 'All that talk about chalk in your first year —'

Remus' cheeks immediately heated. 'Fuck off, I was doing my best.'

Sirius laughed and shook his head, but there was a softness to his expression, something that Remus saw very rarely and (and god, this just twisted at his heart, didn't it) only ever directed at him. 'I can't believe that was your best.'

'You're intimidating.'

'Oh.' All softness in Sirius' expression immediately vanished, replaced by that smug grin that makes Remus want to kick him out of his office and tear off his shirt simultaneously. 'What makes me intimidating?'

Remus didn't answer, but Sirius, of course, pressed on. 'Is it my rugged good looks?'

'Get the fuck out of my office.' His voice was definitely muffled against the wood, but he was certain that Sirius heard him all the same.

Sirius laughed himself all the way out of Remus' office and — the bloody bastard — Remus could _still_ hear him laughing when he was back down the hall.

Despite freakouts like, well, today's, Remus really had settled into life here in Los Angeles, in this department. Had, surprising literally everyone (okay, really just himself, because James and Lily seemed to believe that this was the most predictable outcome of all time), managed to settle into this relationship with Sirius.

He was no longer in the days of running in and out of the central office — everyone in the department knew that he and Sirius were together — but he was still far quicker than was probably typical of someone who "didn't care if anyone saw him there".

But even with all this… stability, he still felt a little unmoored when he thought about his future here. Like he was one false step, one loose thread from slipping up and losing his grasp on everything that he'd managed to build in Los Angeles.

He'd thought he'd achieved everything he'd been working towards in just, you know, getting this job, but now that he was here, at the beginnig of his third year, he knew that this had only, annoyingly, been the first step towards what he'd _really_ been working towards — tenure and a secure line until the end of time.

He'd let himself breathe his first year (marginally, he was Remus Lupin after all and, no matter what James and Lily said, _breathing_ was never going to be something that properly made its way into his vocabulary) — just, you know, getting settled and learning how to teach these students (some of who had more money than god) — but now that he was looking down the barrel of his third year review, he realised just how little time he had to pull himself together and make sure he didn't fall flat on his arse.

He just had that one line from his contract ringing over and over again in his ears. _In the event of a negative decision during the contract renewal review, 2020-2021 will be the terminal year._

It was a miracle he managed to actually read out lines from Baumgardner in class and didn't just shout that contract line at his students over and over again until he passed out. Or, even worse, drag out his dossier and make them all walk through it with him because he wanted to make sure that he had all the pieces and that he'd said everything in the exact right way.

'No one has literally _ever_ had a negative three-year review in my time here,' Sirius said (and kept saying every time Remus brought it up). Tonight, Remus was laying on his sofa in his still embarrassingly sparse apartment, his head in Sirius' lap because honest to god, his head was going to explode and Sirius massaging his forehead was probably the only thing keeping his skull from bursting.

'I don't think that's the helpful comment you think it is,' Remus said. He sounded anguished, dramatic, and he hated it, but it was what it was, wasn't it? Because the truth of the matter was, sure, no one might have had a negative review in Sirius' time there, but there was always a first time and there was literally nothing in the universe that said that Remus wasn't going to be that first time.

If anything, now that they'd thrown it out there, it seemed more and more likely. And the mental energy that Remus was exhausting on this whole thing had to be, like, dragging that closer to him right? Like _The Secret_ but in reverse.

He knew a lot about _The Secret_ because, wow, some of his students _really_ clung to it for some reason, but of all the things he knew, knowing how it apparently worked was not one of them.

Sirius laughed and stopped rubbing Remus' right temple long enough to thread his fingers through Remus' hair. Remus' eyes fluttered closed and he drew in a soft breath, focusing, for a brief moment, on the feeling of Sirius' fingers against his scalp.

'You'll be fine.' Sirius sounded soft, warm — it was his private voice, his _no one can hear me but you_ voice, and every time it gave Remus heart palpitations. 'Have you met you?'

'I have met me,' Remus said, eyes still closed. 'I'm a fucking mess.'

Sirius snorted. 'Fucking mess is my territory, stop encroaching.'

Remus' eyes flicked open to find Sirius smiling down at him. And even though he rolled his eyes (it was impossible not to roll his eyes at Sirius sometimes), Remus reached up, his hand loosely cupping Sirius' jaw. It was awkward from this angle, but Sirius didn't seem too fussed about it.

'Sorry,' he said. 'I'll try to keep it together so I stop overshadowing you.'

Sirius' smile widened and he leant down, his hair falling into a curtain around them because he'd long since tugged his hair out of the bun he'd worn to work earlier that day. His hair had been wild when he'd first taken it down — a mass of curls — but Sirius' hair never could hold onto a curl for long. The only hint of them now was in the soft waves at the ends. He paused when he was a breath away from Remus' lips, until he was so close that Remus could feel the heat of them and the soft, barely there brush of them against his own lips when he spoke.

'That's all I ask.'

And, fucking hell, come whatever else — even if he ended up fired and living in a box — he bloody loved this man.

* * *

'James, I'm dying.'

It was the middle of October, the last (official) month of fire season (something that Remus, coincidentally, knew nothing about prior to moving to California and that he still found, like, deeply shocking (about as shocking as the earthquakes and wow, yes, he would be retiring to the bottom of the Mariana Trench now)). It was still almost painfully warm and the rain was still basically absent, but the promise of colder temperatures and greyer skies was on the horizon.

It was a promise that Remus normally basked in, though, this year, it also happened to coincide with his three-year review dossier submission deadline which definitely put something of a damper on his usual excitement.

'You're not dying.' James rolled his eyes. 'Sirius told me that you were going to stop being dramatic about this, but I see that was all just for show.'

Remus held his fingers up at the camera. 'Are you talking to Sirius behind my back again?'

'Hey,' James laughed a little, his smile wide. 'What Sirius and I do on our own time is none of your business.'

Remus made a gagging face. 'Gross.'

James' smile just flicked wider. 'Honestly, though, Remus, I really think that you're going to be okay. Lily told me that she read your personal statement and it was brilliant.'

'That's because Lily is literally the nicest person on the planet —'

'Uh, excuse me.' James held up his hand. 'Do you or do you not remember how much she marked up my essays in uni because I think we both know that she's not one to withhold comment.'

'He's right.' Lily stepped into view and, after pressing up to kiss the edge of James' jaw, she turned to face the camera, bending over to rest her forearms on the counter and centring herself in the screen so that James was barely visible behind her. 'It really was brilliant, Remus.'

He'd spent the better part of the last three weeks drafting that statement over and over again, tweaking it until it felt exactly right (or, more accurately, until he couldn't look at it anymore for fear of his eyes permanently freezing open). He and his other third-year mates had set up a small dossier group, one that was reminiscent of his dissertation writing group in all the best (and all the worst) ways, and he'd gotten some good feedback from them, Mary especially, that he'd incorporated before he'd thrown it into Lily's inbox with a desperate little _please read this before I just go lay down in the middle of Sunset and beg someone to convince their driver to run me over_

He forced his shoulders down (just a millimetre, but still, something) and exhaled deeply. 'Thanks. I practically had to melt my mind down to get it out, but I'm glad you think it was worth it in the end.'

Lily rolled her eyes lightly and Remus had a moment, forceful, like he could almost feel it against his chest, where he knew that if she was there, she would have punched him lightly in the arm.

He'd lived so far away from Lily and James at this point that, honestly, they'd lived apart longer than they'd ever lived in the same place. Nine years, Remus had been in the States, nine years, and sometimes, randomly, he just had this realisation that, in all likelihood, this was it for him. That this was home now.

That the longest he'd ever see James and Lily again would probably be summers or sabbaticals and it wasn't that he didn't love this life he was building for himself, but it was just that sometimes the reality of it hit him in the gut and knocked the breath out of him for a few seconds.

It wasn't bad, it was just strange, uncanny, looking around at your life and realising that you were living it five thousand miles away from the only place you'd ever been able to imagine yourself, from all the people that mattered the most to you in the world (minus one).

James poked his head back into the frame, his chin resting on top of Lily's head. 'When is your dossier due in?'

Remus suppressed a groan (barely, it should be noted, but still, he suppressed it). 'This Friday.'

Lily smiled softly at him, her expression telling Remus that she knew he'd barely managed to keep himself together just then. 'Your materials are excellent. They'd be stupid not to renew your contract.'

'Yeah,' James agreed, nodding so fervently that even Lily's head was moving, 'you're a fucking genius, Lupin.'

'James!' Lily reached back to shove him off her, and James just laughed, his hands catching her waist as he straightened.

'I'm serious,' Lily said, and she had that _mum look_ on, the one that, if he was being really honest, even scared Remus a little. 'You're going to be renewed, Remus. And if, by some _fluke_ , you aren't, you tell me who I need to talk to.'

'And if a few people end up with broken arms, mind your business,' James said, his grin far too jovial for someone threatening physical violence.

Remus laughed, some of the weight he'd been carrying around since the start of term finally starting to slide off his shoulders.

'I know nothing,' he said, shaking his head. 'Heard nothing.'

Lily pointed at the camera, her mouth hitching up just a little bit from the right corner. 'Exactly.'

While Remus was fairly sure that his contract renewal wasn't going to come to, like, James Bond sorts of activities, he was glad to know that he had Lily (and James, but, if it had to be one of them, Lily was definitely the crime boss of the two) in his corner ready to snap some scaps. It calmed him just enough that he could pull together his dossier and finally, _finally_ , upload everything to Interfolio without having a breakdown.

Well, not a complete breakdown anyway. He definitely still spent the bulk of the day shut in his office re-reading all his materials again (yes, even including all the syllabi from all the courses he'd taught since starting at USC which, yes, because he taught a 2:2 meant that he was reading ten syllabi, most of which were exact copies of one another and all of which he had obsessed over when he'd first written them so that he didn't end up with students in his office like _but you said this in the syllabus_ and then he didn't have any idea what they were talking about).

But whatever, a full day reading back his materials (a full day that he honestly should have spent marking the reading notes his activism class had just turned in that Monday) was not enough for Remus to classify it as a breakdown. He was just doing his due diligence to make sure that he didn't have any typos.

'You finished?'

Remus looked up from behind his desk — ignoring the temporary shock at the fact that, wow, it had gotten a lot darker in this office since he'd last been noticing things other than his computer screen — and found Sirius standing there, shoulder pressed against his door frame like always. Remus ran his gaze once over the long line of Sirius' legs before he swallowed and flicked his gaze back up to Sirius'.

'Yup.' He consciously relaxed his fingers and moved his hands away from the keyboard. 'Just getting ready to submit it.'

'Awesome.' Sirius pushed up off the door frame, his smile growing wider by degrees as he stepped into Remus' office. Remus thought that he was going to drop down in the chair opposite his desk, maybe even the couch, but Sirius rounded the corner instead, coming to stand behind Remus' chair. He moved forward until Remus could just feel the press of his body through the leather chair back.

'So.' Sirius put his hands on Remus' shoulders, his fingertips pressing lightly into his skin before he smoothed his palms down over the top of Remus' biceps. His palms were warm, even through the thin material of Remus' jumper, and Remus repressed a shiver. 'Have you hit submit yet?'

'Uh.' Remus swallowed, shook his head. 'N-not yet, no.'

Fucking hell, why was he literally thirteen again?

'Hmm.' Sirius' hum was low, deep in his throat, and even though he knew it was impossible, Remus would swear that he could feel it through the chair. 'Why not?'

'I — uhm — nerves?'

'You don't sound sure.'

God damn it, Remus could hear the smile in his voice.

'I —' Remus flexed his fingers before he slid them swiftly back up onto his computer, his index finger drawing circles on his trackpad as he let a deep sigh fall out of him.

'I'm scared of hitting submit.' He was talking so quickly he could barely feel his mouth forming the words. 'I'm scared of not being able to read through everything anymore because then I won't be able to make changes to it or even just, like, check that I actually uploaded everything that I thought I uploaded and I have this feeling that the minute I hit submit I'll be looking through my originals and spot some horrid typo that will say, like "Fuck McGonagall" or something and then I won't have my contract renewed and then I'll be out of a job.'

He knew it was nonsense, could hear it as he was saying it, but knowing and feeling are two very different things and, well, his _feeling_ was out of control.

He plucked a pen off his desk, absently rolling it between his fingers. 'And once I'm out of a job, I'm probably not going to get another — like what hack of a university would hire me after my contract didn't get renewed — and then I'll have to move back to the UK and while, okay, part of me would love to get to be near James and Lily again, most of me really just can't bear the idea of — of —'

_Not being near you anymore._

Sirius squeezed his shoulders, his left thumb sliding over so that he could brush up against the end of Remus' collarbone.

'None of that is going to happen,' he said. And it was private voice Sirius in full force, soft and warm and everything Remus needed. 'You forget that I've seen your materials. And I've seen everyone else's materials since, like, basically the dawn of time.'

Sirius laughed gently and Remus mirrored him, his shoulders creeping down a little as he set the pen back down onto the desktop.

'You're an integral part of this department, Remus,' Sirius said. He squeezed Remus' shoulders again, this time firmer than before, like he was physically holding Remus to the earth (and, in a way, Remus supposed that he was). 'You're Assistant Director of Advising before you're great with the students, your evals are always consistently the highest in the department, you've been published more often in the last two years than anyone else here, _and_ you're the advisor for like, literally thirteen student orgs.'

'Not _thirteen_ —'

'You're our Faculty Senator for fuck's sake.' Sirius tilted his head over the back of the chair, just enough that Remus could turn his head and make eye contact. Sirius' gaze was bracing and had as physical a hold on him as the hands on Remus' shoulders. 'Minnie doesn't let just anyone go fight with the assholes in engineering.'

Remus laughed again, the screws finally loose enough in his chest that things started jostling around, knocking themselves against his ribs, wearing down. Almost absently, he dragged two fingers along his trackpad, his screen sliding down to the very bottom of the page he had open in his browser.

'I know that you're right.' He could see the submit button now and, though he slid his mouse overtop, he just as quickly moved his hands away from the computer again. 'And, yes, realistically, I've built this all up in my head and it's going to be fine —'

'It is.'

'— but I've just spent so many years of my life working for this and I'm scared that I don't know what I would do if it went completely tits up.'

Neither of them said anything for a moment, just let that hang in the air between them.

Remus' eyes fluttered closed, and, because his life was an absolute joke at this point, the Interfolio submission page was imprinted on the inside of his eyelids.

'Well,' Sirius' voice was soft, softer than Remus had ever heard it before, and Remus thought, very briefly, that Sirius was treating him like a small animal he was desperately trying not to startle. 'Can I say that I really don't think you need a contingency plan?'

'Ugh.' Remus let his head fall back, the back of his skull colliding with Sirius' chest. His head was tilted up towards the ceiling and, though he could have opened his eyes, he didn't think that staring at the very depressing ceiling tiles would help his already incredibly tragic mood. 'I know, and, for what it's worth, I know that you're probably right, it's just….'

Remus trailed off, half, honestly, in hopes that Sirius would fill the silence for him and he wouldn't have to figure out how to end that sentence. For once, though, Sirius was apparently feeling _silent_ because he just let Remus dangle there until he couldn't bear it any longer and filled the silence himself.

'I've spent the last nine years working to get to this point,' Remus said quietly. He picked his head up off Sirius' chest, his nose drawing a line through the air until his chin was tucked, just slightly, his head hanging forward. 'And I've been doing it every day, making choices and sacrifices and giving up sleep and some of my sanity and I love it, you know, I love it or I wouldn't keep doing it, but there's something about this, and deadlines, you know, moments when things could take a turn, that I just start to wonder….' He took a deep breath, his shoulders rising until they nearly touched his ears before they fell back down again.

'I wonder if it was all as _worth it_ as I thought it was. Like if I failed my contract renewal, would I regret the fact that I've been apart from my best friends for almost a decade? Would I regret all the hours of stress I put myself through when I was waiting to hear back from journals or being crushed to death under deadlines or freaking out before giving conference papers because apparently nine years isn't enough to actually figure out how to give a speech in front of people in a calm, rational sort of way.'

He laughed a little again, shaking his head, and Sirius' hands tightened their grip on his shoulders. It was brief, a barely there sort of squeeze, but Remus felt it down to his core.

'And I don't know what I'd do if I had to leave now,' Remus said. He was whispering now, as though a small, quiet voice would prevent Sirius hearing his admission, because even now, two years and I Love You™ later, Remus was still just as repressed as he'd ever been. 'I'd have to go back to England, but I don't — I don't know what I'd do without you there and I couldn't ask you to uproot your life, but I'll be honest, it'd be really, really hard not to do exactly that.'

Sirius exhaled, the soft wave of his breath rustling the hair at the back of Remus' head.

'I'd go if you were leaving,' Sirius said. 'If the worst happened, which it won't,' he squeezed Remus' shoulders again, 'I'd go with you. In a heartbeat.'

Remus sighed again. 'I couldn't ask you to do that.'

'You wouldn't be asking me,' Sirius said simply. 'I'd be offering.'

'Still —'

'Still nothing.' Sirius pressed his hands into Remus' shoulders, harder this time, the pressure spinning Remus' chair just enough that he got the hint and started toeing his way around so that he was facing Sirius properly.

'If you think I wouldn't leave LA in a heartbeat for you, then you're an idiot,' Sirius said. 'And I know you're not an idiot because you're very highly educated.'

Remus laughed and shook his head, his hands twitching uselessly on his thighs. 'A lot of very highly educated people are idiots.'

'Yeah, but you're not one of them,' Sirius said. Remus flicked his gaze up to Sirius' and, when their eyes met, Sirius' expression was stern, earnest. 'If we had to go back to England, Remus, I would. The lack of sun would _definitely_ take some getting used to, and I'd definitely have to be careful with my leather jacket in all the rain, but otherwise, we'd make it work. Besides, I'd love to get to spend more time with my long lost brother.'

'Christ.' Remus laughed again, shook his head again, but this time it felt less like a prequel to something tragic and more like an actual moment of joy. 'I change my mind about inviting you, I don't know if I'd be able to stand that.'

Sirius flashed him a bright smile. 'Green is an ugly colour on you, Lupin.'

Remus rolled his eyes. 'It's not jealousy, it's preemptive self-preservation —'

'Whatever.' Sirius waved his hand, still smiling, and though Remus had the distinct feeling that he was being shuffled along, he felt like he minded it a little less this time. 'My point stands. You're not getting rid of me that easily.'

'A for effort on my part, though, I suppose,' Remus muttered.

Sirius' lips twitched with a laugh, but he furrowed his brows in an effort to appear still more serious. 'Sure. Now turn in your materials. You have to do it by the end of the day anyway, and what's the difference between now and then?'

'A few hours.' Remus' voice was completely flat, deadpan, but there was no mistaking the amusement in his features.

Sirius shot him a look. 'Fuck off.' He pressed his hands into Remus' chair and spun him back around so that he was facing his computer again. 'Do it, Lupin.'

He had half a mind to argue a little more — there was something very irresistible about arguing with Sirius — but he also knew that, this time, there was nothing else in it except in the continued delay of what he knew he had to do before the day was out. So, rather than continue to fight it, Remus took one last deep breath and (closing his eyes a little because, okay, he was still kind of a coward) jabbed his index finger down on the submit button.

* * *

Remus did everything he could to distract himself from his review over the next few months (yes, _months_ , because, sure, a packet of materials that concerned the whole of his professional life was certainly going to take time to read but also, _months_ was absolute psychological torture as far as Remus was concerned).

He knew that the committee was meeting, would have to meet four times, in fact, over the autumn term, but he didn't know when and he didn't ask Sirius about it and Sirius didn't offer it up even though they both knew that he knew.

It wasn't that, really, in the back of his mind, he honestly thought that he'd fail his third year review. He'd been working incredibly hard the last few years, even harder than he had been in his doctoral programme, and he'd had something of a lucky windfall last year where publications were concerned and he heard back from three of his long outstanding submissions all at once. All acceptances.

Or, well, two acceptances and then a revise and resubmit that turned into an acceptance.

There was part of him that felt like, you know, of course that happened, of course he was being published and of course his teaching was (mostly) going well and of course he was still going to conferences and serving on campus committees and becoming a junior faculty voice the university could count on to consistently be in the room. There was a part of him that wasn't surprised about any of it, because he knew how hard he worked, but no matter what he did, there was always that small quiet voice in the back of his mind.

It was a reminder that, as junior faculty, he really wasn't as secure as he thought he was, that, at any time, they could pull the rug out from under him and he'd be gone. It rang especially loudly in meetings, especially the Faculty Senate meetings, just as he'd leant back in his chair, satisfied with whatever he'd just said about properly paying adjuncts or actually supporting the BIPOC students and the queer students on campus (a revelation, apparently, to some of his colleagues), that voice always hummed softly when Geoff from Computer Science always leant forward and said something just _slightly_ condescending afterwards, enough to both undercut Remus' point and ensure he got away with it.

He wasn't going to stop bringing it up, Remus, but he was aware of the shifting ground he was on.

He remembered, now, what he'd used to think about academia before he'd gotten into graduate school and really started immersing himself in it. That it was this, not magical, because god, that seemed ridiculous, even to nineteen year old Remus who, honestly, with his ill-fitting (in all senses of the word) punk attire and stopped stature from years spent hunched over so he wasn't the tallest in the room, was about as ridiculous as they come.

But he'd had it in his head that academia, despite all its Ivory Tower bullshit, was the best place, the only place where he'd be able to do the work that he wanted. The only place where he'd get to be on the cutting edge of thoughts and ideas, the place where he'd get to spend his days reading and writing and thinking and teaching the next generation of students to raise absolute _hell_ and the idea of that, in his early twenties, had been so appealing to him that Remus was willing to bet that it carried him through the whole of university and, like, at least the first year of his doctoral degree.

And still, in his heart of hearts, he thought there was a little something to that, idealistic though it was. He was definitely living on the edge of thought in the academy, but the academy was slow, years behind culture in many areas, especially now with the speed of the internet and the news and life in general. There were professors using those spaces — Twitter and popular publications — to jump over year-long journal response timelines and comment on and theorise about things in real time, they were using them to stay relevant, to help people unpack what was happening as it was happening, and Remus admired those professors even if he hadn't really started doing it himself yet. And it was _that,_ that spirit of having to comment, having to share knowledge, that Remus found himself drawn to, and the soft rebellion, the _I could probably repackage these tweets and publish them in Signs but I can't be arsed and there's something HERE about using Twitter in this way anyway_ , honestly tugged at Remus more than it probably should.

Because as he got older, as he got deeper into academia, he realised that even this space (what, in his youth, had seemed a bastion of academic freedom and resistance to neoliberal capitalism) was just as much a part of the problem (and a victim of the system) than it was part of the solution. It was never the space that he'd thought it was, and even now, years later, he couldn't really even articulate what it was that he thought beyond the fact that it was going to make it possible for him to get paid to read and write and think all day. But things always seem a little magical when you're standing outside them — relationships, classrooms, academia — but once he was standing in the centre of it, he managed to get the lay of the land quickly enough.

His mission became, instead, aligning himself with those people who were pushing back against it all. Who were putting out the fire from inside the house.

It was Mae Welsh and her quiet but firm voice in Faculty Senate as she pointed out a few of the _many_ issues with the proposed budget plan, it was McGonagall, clearly two seconds from outrage, in their faculty meetings, fresh off her meeting with the Dean. It was Sirius, hands flying, as he explained the ins and outs of their last Professional Staff Senate meeting, it was Mary and Jake and Jodi and, hell, even Sybil, there were people that Remus felt bolstered by, people who lifted him up in their words and in their actions, and it was there, in the midst of all that, that Remus felt the most at home in his decision to continue in academia.

But even still, it was hard to feel like it all had… purpose, sometimes.

Like the journal articles he was proud of mattered to anyone other than him.

But, really, as long as they still mattered to him, he supposed that it was still worth it to write them.

For as long as he was still going to be allowed to write them. Assuming this review went well.

But so he and Sirius didn't talk about it — not the details, anyway, about when they were, say, reviewing his teaching materials — and, even though Remus definitely did have a few evenings where he… freaked out more than normal (freakouts about purpose were Remus' bread and butter), for the most part, Remus put it out of his mind and Sirius (thank god for Sirius) let him.

As the term steadily bled on, first through October, then November, then the bulk of December, Remus did his absolute best to put the committee and Minerva's impending Chair's recommendation letter out of his mind. It wasn't the end of the process by any means — McGonagall would write her letter then, in February, the Dean would write her letter, and then, in March, the Provost would send down his letter with the final word on Remus' fate — but it was rare, impossibly rare, that the Chair was overruled by the Dean or the Provost, and so Remus though, anxiety aside, that he could fairly safely hang his hat on McGonagall's recommendation. He taught his classes — he had one student in his activism class that was planning a climate walkout in November and Remus spent a fair bit of time getting excited about that — he worked on a draft of something that he hoped would become a new journal article, he followed more people on Twitter and started tweeting a little more about his research because he was firm in his belief that those people already tweeting (god, he sounded a thousand) were right, that tweeting out their work rather than flowing through the slow and traditional channels was no less rigorous, no less correct, and it was fun, Remus thought, playing with a new medium for his ideas.

Seeing how it changed them, or even just the way he articulated them, having to explain them to a wide audience in 240 characters.

All told, he was feeling surprisingly calm as December steadied on. Or, well, as calm as he ever felt at the end of term, which is to say that he wasn't actually that calm at all because he had to write his final exam and grade all the 8-10 page papers in his upper division Irish literature class (papers that had seemed like a good idea when he'd been writing the syllabus, but that he was now very much regretting, an opinion he was sure he shared with his students) and he only had a week between the paper submission deadline and the grade due date, and so, no, he wasn't _calm_ , but he was calm.

Or he was, at least, until he walked into the office one day to grab his mail and there was a sealed letter in a department envelope sitting inside his box, his name in Sirius' hand scratched across the front.

He froze, his hand still outstretched, time suspended around him so that he thought he could see the dust particles in the air falling slowly, slowly towards the ground as his heart steadily climbed into his throat and beat hard against his Adam's apple. Melodramatic? Yes, but true nonetheless, though that still didn't stop him from feeling embarrassed when, three seconds after Remus noticed the envelope, Sirius came striding through the main door, laptop tucked under his arm, and Remus nearly jumped out of his skin.

A smile tugged across Sirius' lips, his gaze flicking once over the length of Remus' body. 'Hey. You okay?'

As though he didn't know what was in Remus' mailbox.

'Uh.' Rather than continue to impress Sirius with his eloquence, Remus pointed at his mailbox.

Sirius' expression softened with understanding. 'Ah, right.' His eyes shone when they met Remus' again, something like amusement in them. 'Do you want me to spoil it for you?'

'No.' Remus swept forward and snatched the small pile of post out of his box (The Letter, the university magazine, a few mailers from publishers). 'I'll — I want to —'

He wasn't sure what he wanted. He wanted to run away, run all the way to the ocean and just keep running until he hit the drop off, he wanted to tear open the envelope and put himself out of his misery, he wanted to lay on the couch in his office and call Lily and distract himself for as long as humanly possible, he wanted —

He must have had something of a trapped animal look about him, because Sirius stepped forward and put his free hand on Remus' forearm.

'Let's go to your office. Open it there.'

Remus absently shook his head. 'Don't you have work —'

'Making sure my faculty are okay is part of my job,' Sirius said. His tone was light, swift, and Remus had the briefest flashback to the first moment they met, Remus' broken mug on the ground, tea everywhere, "I keep paper towels around for a reason", and, god, Remus had never loved Sirius more than in this moment.

Remus let himself be led back through the main door and down the corridor to his office. He'd left his office door open — ill-advisedly, he knew, and Sirius was always telling him off about it — so they walked right into his office. Rather than sitting behind his desk, though, Remus turned immediately and dropped down onto the couch.

The one that he definitely didn't nap on.

Sirius settled in beside him, and Remus focused, for a moment, on the press of their thighs together, the shiny fabric of Sirius' skinny black trousers against the soft, worn in feeling of Remus' old denim jeans (because, yes, he'd finally graduated to letting himself wear jeans to work, and, fine, he still wore trousers on Faculty Senate days, but it still felt like an upgrade). The weight of Sirius' body against his was solid, grounding, the only tether that, at this point, Remus felt like he had to the universe, and so he focused on that, his hands trembling a little, as he lifted the envelope off the pile on his lap.

He traced his finger along the edge of the flap, his fingertip catching on one spot that lifted up slightly when he slid against it.

'You're serious about following me to London?' he asked softly.

Sirius' eyes sparkled. 'I'm always Sirius.'

Remus nudged him with his shoulder. 'Fuck off.'

'I'm serious,' Sirius said. Remus turned to look at him, his breath catching a little (just a little because, really, he was still melting down over this envelope), at how close they were sitting together on the sofa.

He should have known from the press of their thighs, from the feeling of Sirius' arm against his, but it was a surprise, still, that he could see the single small, pale freckle on Sirius' left cheek. That he could see the light sea-green accents in Sirius' storm gray eyes.

Sirius reached over and took Remus' hand, and the breath Remus had been holding steadily leached out of him as Sirius threaded their fingers together.

'I mean it. A heartbeat.'

He didn't say that they wouldn't need to, that Remus was being ridiculous, over the top, anxious for nothing, and even though Remus was definitely being all those things, the absence of it, Sirius' commitment no matter what meant more than Remus could ever say.

He drew in a deep breath, and gave Sirius' hand a firm, delicious squeeze before he unthreaded their fingers and took the envelope in his hands. Sirius' hand fell to Remus' knee, his fingertips pressing lightly into his skin through the fabric of his jeans and it was that, that small reminder, that gave Remus the push he needed to tear open the envelope.

The letterhead paper was thick, thicker than standard weight paper, so it felt a little awkward in Remus' fingers as he unfolded the absolute _packet_ of papers inside, the envelope fluttering down onto the stack of post on his lap.

It was a memo — something about that surprised him, like the whole of his academic future could be condensed down into the form that Procurement used to tell Sirius about changes in travel per diem.

 _To:_ _Dr. Amelia Bones, Dean_

_Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences_

_From:_ _Dr. Minerva McGonagall, Chair_

_Department of English_

_Date:_ _December 17, 2020_

 _Re:_ _Chair's Recommendation: Contract Renewal, Dr. Remus Lupin_

_In the Spring 2020 semester, you appointed faculty to the DP &TC of the Department of English, and, in the Fall 2020 semester, I convened the committee to conduct a review of Dr. Remus Lupin for Contract Renewal._

It went on like that, three pages of content about his teaching, his research, his service to the university and to the profession before, finally, he spotted the line he was looking for at the very end of the memo.

_I strongly concur with the DP &TC's assessment that Dr. Lupin's record to date far exceeds those required for renewal of his contract as a tenure-track Assistant Professor._

'Oh my god.'

If Remus thought his breath had fallen out of him before, it was nothing to how he felt now, like the walls holding him back had finally, finally collapsed and he could breathe, _breathe_ again. He turned to Sirius, smile so wide across his face he thought it must surely be cracking his features, and threw his arms around Sirius' neck, the memo crumpling a little underneath his hands as he pressed Sirius into him.

'Thank you.' Sirius' hair smelled like his shampoo, the slightly sweet banana and coconut combination that lived on Remus' pillows, in his sheets. Remus straightened, his face now just inches from Sirius', and he shook his head a little as their eyes met. 'I can't thank you enough for putting up with me.'

'Not putting up with you,' Sirius said. His hand, still on Remus' knee, squeezed, and Remus felt the electricity spark up along his thigh. 'You just needed to be reminded how brilliant you are.'

'Well, thank you for reminding me,' Remus said softly. He shifted his hold on Sirius' neck, pressing closer, and the memo crumpled still further in his fingers. He'd have to layer his Norton Anthologies on top if he was ever going to make it flat enough to scan properly, but, fuck, he didn't care.

Sirius' eyes were darker, pupils blown, and the hand on Remus' knee had crept up to the outside of his thigh. 'Anytime.'

Remus held Sirius' gaze for a beat, two, before he finally leant forward and kissed him. It was soft at first, a thank you, thank you for being there, for being supportive, for holding him up when he felt like he was nothing more than a few bits of hay hastily glued together by a toddler, but when Sirius' hand migrated from Remus' thigh to press against his chest, when Sirius swiped his tongue along Remus' lower lip, it became a little more — just a little more — than a thank you.

Remus was still very aware of the fact that his office door was open, and even though the last thing he wanted in the entire world was for Minerva, fresh off recommending him for contract renewal, to find him furiously making out with Sirius in his office, the part of Remus that really cared about such things was starting to find fewer and fewer things to cling to to keep Remus within the bounds of propriety.

Especially when Remus dragged his teeth over Sirius' bottom lip and Sirius gasped into his mouth in that little way he did, that sharp, ragged intake of breath that made Remus weak at the knees every time he heard it.

'Hold on.' Sirius pulled back, breathing heavy, and rested his forehead against Remus'. 'I have something else for you.'

'What?' Remus moved one of his hands to the side of Remus' neck, his fingertips tracing circles on the skin underneath Sirius' ear. 'Something I need to shut my door for?'

Sirius' eyes darkened, but, unbelievably, he smiled a little and, after pressing another swift kiss to Remus' lips, he pulled away.

Sirius pulled his mobile from his back pocket and, after a few seconds of clicking, he flashed Remus a smile. 'Check your email.'

Remus shifted, moved to reach inside his jacket pocket, but Sirius reached out and stilled him. 'In a second. I'm going to go back to my office and then you're allowed to look.'

Remus shot him a look, hand still frozen mid-reach. 'This is very dramatic.'

Sirius snorted and pushed himself to his feet. 'Says you.' He collected his laptop from the top of Remus' desk and, after leaning down and pressing a soft, lingering kiss to Remus' lips, whispering, 'We'll celebrate properly tonight,' into Remus' mouth, Sirius strode off down the corridor, steps as unhurried as ever.

Remus waited until he heard the soft creaking of the main office door and the whoosh of air as the door swung closed before he pulled his mobile out of his jacket pocket.

He had a few emails waiting for him — one, two, fuck, _three_ from students in the last hour and a half — but, at the very top of his inbox was the email from Sirius and then everything went still again.

_FW: Your Trip to London - 20 Dec 2020 - 27 Dec 2020_

'Oh my god.'

Remus clicked into the email, his heart hammering hard again and read the small note Sirius had scribbled at the top.

_I know we don't have to run away to London and assume new identities or whatever you were planning, but I thought you might enjoy the trip back home all the same_

_Also James and I already have several dates planned, so I hope you and Lily can find a way to entertain yourselves_

Remus breathed a laugh (it sounded a little gurgly, a little wet, like maybe he was crying a little) and shook his head down at his screen, because leave it to Sirius to both give him the exact thing he wanted most in this world — this letter that, okay, technically hadn't been Sirius' doing beyond typing it out, and this trip back to London that was a celebration, a renewal, a reminder of what James and Lily and Harry and Mia looked like, _god_ , baby Mia who he'd never actually seen in person —leave it to Sirius to give him both of those things in one afternoon like it meant nothing at all.

Remus closed his email and opened up his texts, which, naturally, immediately opened into his conversation with Sirius.

He hesitated for a long second, fingers trembling as he thought of what to say, before he finally gave up and said the only thing he could possibly say.

_Thank you. Sirius, THANK YOU_

It wasn't enough, wasn't anywhere near enough to describe everything that he was feeling, staring down at this travel itinerary, but it was all that he could muster that even came close.

Sirius, though, seemed to understand everything that Remus wasn't saying.

_Sirius: I know how much you miss them_

_Sirius: and I've always wanted to see London in winter so win win_

Win win was right.

Remus typed out a quick reply ( _We're definitely getting dinner somewhere bougie later to celebrate. I love you_ _xx_ ) before he opened WhatsApp.

_Chat: remus' support system_

_Remus: So I take it you two already know about this_

_Remus: *img of flight itinerary*_

He thought he'd have to wait a minute — maybe even until tomorrow because it was, after all, pushing nine at night there and, no matter what James and Lily said, they were old to their _core_ now, but Lily replied almost right away (and she must have nudged James because he was in the chat soon after).

_Lily: YES_

_Lily: god it was killing James not to say anything_

_James: …. it was killing you too_

_Lily: whatever but YES WE KNEW_

_Lily: WE'RE SO EXCITED_

_James: you better hold onto Sirius, mate, because he is next level_

Remus stared down at that message for a moment, his breath catching in his chest in the absolute best way. Even just reading it, thinking about it, he felt like his heart was swelling, like he couldn't breathe, and even though he'd felt this way before, like he was standing on a cliff's edge, there was something about this time, this feeling, that was making him feel like he wanted to just press off into the air rather than turn tail and dart in the opposite direction.

He was terrified of a million things, worried about a million more, and he couldn't control most of the things in his life, but Sirius made him want to relax into that feeling and just _be_. Sirius made him want to be brave.

_Remus: Believe me, I plan to_

_James: omg lils do you hear that_

_Lily: I think so_

_Lily: it's faint but…._

_Remus: sigh_

_Remus: hear what_

_James: WEDDING BELLS!!!!!!_

_Remus: jesus christ_

Though, really, if Remus was honest, like, really, really honest, he could kind of hear them a little bit, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://elanev91.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
